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See a subject that resurfaces time and time again with my clients is relationships. This has only increased after I shared a very vulnerable story about how my marriage almost ended in my first book, From Heart to HRart. Relationships are hard, whether it’s with family, friends, co-worker or your significant other. Being vulnerable and providing permission to others to be so close and intimate is also putting ourselves at risk for the most amount of pain.
The number one question that is asked of me in regards to my marriage and how it is stronger today more than ever is, what did you do?

For four years now, we have been coming together to create Vision Boards with new found clarity about our year to come. It is hands down my favorite event that we host at Leadership Arts. As with all of our programming, I am always constantly re-evaluating to ensure that we deliver the absolute best! As a result, Vision Fest has had quite an evolution and after experiencing this year’s Vision Fest I had a few takeaways that I would like to implement for next year. As my fellow Visionaries, I’d like to share these takeaways with you first…

Instagram has a #tradition of reviewing the year by sharing nine images. Curating my nine images served as the starting point to my reflective practice and despite the fact that I did manage to select nine images, I came to the realization that there were many more moments that deserved acknowledgment.
So here is my year in review and my most significant 18 moments of 2018.

Thanksgiving is this week and it definitely seems to have shown up out of nowhere. But last week was my son’s Thanksgiving party at school and I signed up to bring a dessert. I stumbled on a turkey cookie image and thought these will be cool to make.
So I embarked on a mission to create these turkey cookies.

As a Human Resources professional, I preach a lot about the balance of work and life. The question I sometimes get is “Well how do you do it?”. I take great pride in my ability to be able to really balance my focus on the multiple hats that I wear. I know that in order to thrive in the roles, they each need to have their time to be a priority.

Do you brood? Unfortunately, I believe this is a skill set that I have mastered over the course of my life. Being detailed oriented is commonly a skill that I lack, however when it comes to brooding I have a knack for focusing on the details. If you aren’t sure what I mean by brooding, let me break it down for you. Whenever a circumstance presented itself, resulting in me being unhappy, I would basically analyze it to death. With the level of analyzation needed to achieve this goal, it required holding onto the initial circumstances for great lengths and in some special scenarios almost indefinitely. That my friend is brooding at it’s finest. I became an expert at dissecting the situations that made me unhappy, usually motivated by the pursuit of someone else to blame besides myself. Trying to increase my self-worth by uncovering evidence that proved I was not the fool this time.

Last week I had the honor and privilege of speaking at my first national conference in Boston. It was an incredible milestone for me and I knew this going into the opportunity. However, I didn’t fully comprehend what this milestone meant to me until we were leaving. In fact, it was actually on the Uber ride to the airport that the significance of this event hit me.

Are you a Charlie Pluth fan? I currently have his album, Voicenotes, in my car and it’s my go-to whenever I can’t find something to jam to on the radio and I haven’t plugged my phone in for easy access to Spotify. The album kicks off with a catchy tune called “The Way I Am” which is actually Pluth’s personal anthem of self-acceptance. The lyrics personally hit home for me, especially as I reflected on my week.

Mindfulness is all the rage these days. It seems like everywhere we turn there’s something about mindfulness in the news, online, in stores, etc. But what does it mean to be mindful and how does it apply to our conversations in both our personal and professional lives?
Mindfulness, by definition, is simply bringing your full awareness to the present moment, and only the present moment. Mindful conversation then is to be fully present in a conversation. Your attention is 110% in the conversation.

You have probably heard the saying “look on the brighter side”. It’s something we often say to someone when things aren’t going their way or when life seems to be working against them in some way. It serves as a reminder of the bigger picture. It speaks to the art of reframing your reality, of looking at things from a different perspective, and of not allowing certain circumstances to dictate how you feel or act. It is a powerful technique that is full of important lessons for all of us.

There are a ton of things we can do in an effort to stop all the chatter in our minds that tells us to be afraid or that we are not good enough. This article by no means covers them all, but it does give a sampling of some of the more impactful things you can do to help yourself overcome the harmful cycle of negative messages that often play in our minds.

Who among us has not at some point thought: I am not good enough. I am not smart enough. I don’t have anything to offer. I am not good looking enough. I’m not skinny enough. I’m not tall enough. I’m not in shape enough. I am not deserving. I am not worthy.
I could go on, but I think you get the point. Whether personally and/or professionally, occasionally or on a regular basis, we all wrestle with these kinds of thoughts about ourselves. It happens to me almost on a daily basis. Whether it’s because something didn’t work out the way I had hoped or I find myself comparing my life to that of others, thoughts like that always manage to find their way inside my head.
And what can make it even worse is the fact that it often appears as if everyone else has it all figured out (thank you social media) and we are the only ones over here struggling. Can you relate?